Himatangi first up for community readiness

Get Ready at Home ambassadors will be
knocking on doors around Himatangi over the coming weeks to
ask whether residents feel ready to get through an
emergency.

The householders’ survey is the first stage
in a Get Ready at Home project being piloted by the
Manawatu-Wanganui Civil Defence and Emergency Management
Group.

It aims to determine whether people know which
disasters could affect their community, if they have an
emergency plan and supplies and whether they’d like
further assistance from a trained Get Ready at Home
team.

Horizons Regional Council emergency management
advisor Ross Brannigan says the Region’s Civil Defence and
Emergency Management Group has worked closely with residents
of Himatangi over the past few years, making it an obvious
choice for the programme.

“Himitangi is a very proactive
community when it comes to emergency management. We recently
worked with the Himatangi Civil Defence Community Response
Group to develop a community response plan.

“We’re
really encouraging local people to embrace this opportunity
to get involved and help us ascertain where they’re at
with their preparedness. Once we have this feedback we’ll
be able to either roll out the entire programme, which
includes home-readiness workshops and visits, or scale it
back depending on the needs of the community,” he
says.

Get Ready at Home ambassadors will be wearing high
visibility vests emblazoned with the Manawatu-Wanganui Civil
Defence logo as well as ID tags.

Anyone not at home during
the survey period will be sent a copy to return via post.
More information on how you can get prepared at home is
available online at www.getthru.govt.nz

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